Since the advent of substantial increases in the cost of tailor made cigarettes, a significant number of smokers have resorted to making their own, using loose tobacco and cigarette tubes. Accordingly, there has been an increased need for cigarette tubes and there is a need in the tube manufacturing industry to have an apparatus which, cost effectively, packages such tubes. Also cigarette tubes are used in large numbers by the cigarette manufacturing industry, where cigarette tubes are commercially filled in large numbers.
Compared to a commercially made cigarette, a filter tip cigarette tube is quite fragile. A commercial, filled, cigarette is entirely solid whereas a cigarette tube is hollow for a considerable portion of its length. With commercial cigarettes being solid, quality control sensors and other detecting devices that apply pressure, or use the weight/density factor are readily usable, but cannot be used for cigarette tubes, and particularly filter tipped cigarette tubes, as these are "uneven" or "unbalanced".
As an example, a filter tipped cigarette tube can have about 80% of its length hollow, or empty, with the remaining about 20% being filled by the filter plug. There is therefore considerable difference between the structure of the filled cigarette and the filter tipped cigarette tube. A typical container holding 10,000 tubes has a total weight of about 8.25 pounds, whereas a container holding 10,000 commercial cigarettes weighs about 50 pounds.
Due to the lack of "body" in filter tipped cigarette tubes, except for the filter plug area, they are very fragile and are easily distorted or crushed. This causes problems by users, as a crushed or creased tube is difficult to mount on the tube nozzle of the injection type cigarette making machine.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,004,374 discloses an apparatus for collecting cigarettes in receptacles. Generally, the reference teaches an apparatus in which cigarettes are transported through a series of mechanical and manual stages involving extensive manipulation of the cigarette. Such manipulation does not substantially affect a filled cigarette tube. However, the same treatment results in dents and creases in the tubes and therefore is prohibitive for delicate cigarette tubes. Accordingly, the apparatus disclosed by Pembroke in U.S. Pat. No. 3,004,374, is not useful for packaging cigarette tubes.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,365,857, further relates to an apparatus for collecting and manipulating rows of rod-shaped articles and more particularly, cigarettes. The apparatus is primarily employed for stacking rows of cigarettes into trays and includes quality control means. The reference does not teach a packaging apparatus (such as disclosed herein) adapted to automatically position a charge of cigarette tubes into a carton therefor, via a lateral injection means, without damaging the tube.
Further, Hillman, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,919,529, teaches an improved apparatus for collecting cigarettes in receptacles. The apparatus is specifically designed for use in manipulating cigarettes, cigars and the like articles which contain a charge of tobacco by injecting needles into the cigarette, etc. In view of this, the Hillman reference does not contemplate a device for manipulating hollow cigarette tubes for packaging the same.
There is still required a high speed, high efficiency method and apparatus for loading cigarette tubes into a receptacle without damaging the tubes, while further reducing the extent to which the tubes are handled either mechanically or manually. The present invention clearly addresses these requirements and, in one aspect provides an apparatus for packaging cigarette tubes in a receptacle from a supply source, comprising advancing means for moving a predetermined number of cigarette tubes from the supply source; accumulator means in operative association with the advancing means for accumulating the predetermined amount to be packed into a concentrated volume; and transfer means for transferring the concentrated volume of tubes into the receptacle.